It’s horrifying to me that any of these fucking games are running outside userspace. Is anti cheat the only reason why that is necessary? Why is it necessary for anti cheat?

the human still got the job and was paid for it, he was just saved the hassle of

These are hourly contract roles, so that isn’t how it works. “saved the hassle of” - the human lost working hours.

I would love to have a Steam Machine. I love my Steam Deck. However… the nature of Steam games, so far, even on the Deck, is that you need to bop “ok” every once in a while, or even enter a username or something for some unwashed-ass game, and that’s a lot harder on a form factor that doesn’t have a touchscreen…